LyrArc Article Gist
Mikaela Shiffrin is now one of the best downhill skiers of all time. After she failed in four races in the Beijing Olympics she lost some of the spirit she had. Rachel Bachman describes a visit to Roger Federer's home in the Alps that helped restore Mikaela's spirit and gave her some important advice on longevity in sport. First it was time to take a look around you notice things and breathe it all in. As Federer put it- "You need to take the moments to look up and around you, to appreciate where you are, breathe it in." It is when you are in the depths of your career and it is difficult to do this, that when it is the most important to do this, Federer told Mikaela Shiffrin and her mother Eileen on that day at lunch in the Federer home in the Swiss Alps.

LyrArc Article Gist
Clearly New Yorkers can as a community do better. As Paris gets ready for the Olympics the efforts of City Hall and the French local and federal governments can be something for New York to learn from. Clearly as home to Wall Street New Yorkers should get their priorities straight and invest in the subway system taking a page from Tokyo and other cities that are doing infinitely better in their subway systems with modernization and attractive subway facilities. Surely this takes investment in people and facilities on a scale with tens of billions of dollars in investment which can be diverted from wasteful spending in many startups, and tax dollars going into what comes first for New Yorkers using the subway system every day. Today New Yorkers are like the people of Mumbai who until the efforts of the Modi government to invest in the complete modernization of subway and trains had given up hope so entrenched were old systems and old ideas.

LyrArc Article Gist
Gas supplies are so tightly balanced that minor glitches can create a jump in gas prices and electricity bills, says this report in WSJ. There is no backup supply with about 2 million barrels of oil gas equivalent knocked out because of Ukraine war. Supply is 4080 billion cubic metres of gas worldwide and demand 4070, so tight. By comparison oil supplies have backup and are more stable gpoing up only 6% for Brent crude this week of Israeli conflict. Even the stoppage such as at the Tamar offshore gas field west of Haifa, Israel or a Baltic sea gas pipeline explosion in Finland can have an effect. Gas prices benchmark was up 40% during the Israel Gaza war, by comparison oil is relatively stable with Brent crude rising 6%. Iran exports 3.1 million barrels a day, the US to keep prices stable has not strictly imposed sanctions on Iranian oil.

LyrArc Article Gist
California's economy is going through tough times during the coronavirus. Unemployment is up to over 20% which compares to 14.7% for the U.S., closer to that of New York. The state depends on the tourism industry, agriculture in the San Joaquin Valley, and entertainment industry around Los Angeles for jobs. Tech in the San Jose area does not account for as many jobs. The state also has a public university system and foreign students mostly from China bringing in $7 billion.   Its port system around Long Beach and Los Angeles connects with the Asian economies and China, for goods mainly transported to the rest of the U.S.  All these sectors are the ones most badly hit during the coronavirus.  California now has a deficit of $54 billion and was the first state to borrow from the federal government to pay $13 billion in unemployment claims. Undocumented Californians are not able to collect unemployment because of their immigration status, creating an American version of the informal economy that is found in India and Italy or Spain. California has 83 million people taking plane trips to the state for a tourism industry that normally brings in $145 billion. 600,000 travel industry jobs were lost in the state. Taxes related to travel are a significant source of revenue for cities in California bringing in $12 billion. The only sector that is less affected is the tech industry, yet this makes up only about 10% of the jobs or 1.7 million higher paid but fewer jobs. This tech sector at about just 15% of the California economy GDP, is of a precarious nature with a boom bust pattern, the last boom one that happened since the 2009 financial crisis. It in no way forms a significant support for employment or income for people in California or the U.S., and may even be responsible for distortions in the allocation of capital away from infrastructure and public services, through its disproportionate influence on how the nation's capital is allocated. The broader changes underway during coronavirus are likely to affect the state over many years, as supply chains shift away from China, and as infrastructure and public services investment assume their rightful role again in the nation rebuilding effort, agriculture and rural America become a part of the American renewal story.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
A look at Israel at 70 by the Economist magazine shows a country that has combined early achievements of socialist governments such as free health care system and good education system with the addition of 1 million immigrants from the collapsing Soviet Union, to build a highly trained technically skilled workforce and international companies.  It says the Israeli Arabs are still poor and unable to integrate. With ultra Orthodox Jews they make up 30% of the population, and many of them who do not work. Infrastructure has suffered from lack of investment and public transport is in poor condition. About 4.5 million Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza remain a continuous source of tension with no settlement in sight. The shift of the capital to Jerusalem is recognized by the U.S. Trump administration, a win for Israel, but leaving the divisive politics of Mr. Netanyahu in place. So that with the growing economy, there are social problems and political division which need to be addressed as much as the economy. A problem left for another administration, another leader from possibly a revived Labor party and another day. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Speaking to journalists after a meeting with the Irish prime Minister Leo Varadkar, the European Council's president Donald Tusk warned of a "special place in hell" for politicians who promoted Brexit "without even a sketch of a plan." Tusk was also critical of Jeremy Corbyn saying there was a leadership void at the heart of the Remain movement. "Today there is no political force and no effective leadership for Remain."  Tusk said there are no alternative arrangements that could replace the backstop, saying "the backstop is needed as a guarantee, A safety net is not a safety net if it can be destroyed by one party." The backstop is a way to keep peace in Northern Ireland. The Irish prime minister and Mr. Tusk circulated a "thank you card" from a Dublin family thanking the EU for its solidarity. The card said Ireland was drawing strength from the words of EU leaders. It said "Britain does not care for peace in Northern Ireland.  To them it's a nuisance." ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Yahoo data for 500 million users was stolen in a hacking attack in 2014, Yahoo disclosed to the media. Experts are troubled by the fact that a Yahoo attack by a state sponsored actor in 2014 was only disclosed 2 years later. Even Verizon which plans to buy Yahoo says it did not know about this hacking attack that compromised 500 million user records, passwords and security questions. Verizon says it came to know about it September 20th about 2 days ago, and has limited idea about its impact. Yahoo says it came to know about this in summer 2016, when stolen data appeared in underground forums for sale. Yahoo upon further investigation discovered the large state sponsored attack in 2014.

LyrArc Article Gist
The biggest part of oil use in the USA is in transportation and this is where the savings have to come from. Americans were driving twice as many miles a day as they did in the last oil crisis in 1979. So a lot of the savings are to be expected in fewer miles driven as prices rise. The other saving will have to come from more efficient cars with better fuel efficiency and use of alternative fuels. Americans consumed 9.1 million barrels a day of gsoline in April 2008, two million barrels a day more than in April 1979. In 1979 of every 100 barrels of oil produced globally 29 wnet into American transportation, homes and power plants. This figure is only slightly down to 24 barrels so there is much room for significant reduction in a world economy where new technology can be accessed and the Japanese model for conservation shows further gains have already been made in other countries. So Chinese and Indian demand and demand in other newly developing countries will play a part but the US and Europe by showing the way in new technologies that can be adapted for use to reduce overall emissions and to get more out of each barrel of oil would find that these technologies are attractive to China and India in stretching a limited resource for increasing numbers of users in large demographics. Figures from Cambridge Energy Associates....

LyrArc Article Gist
The average age of readers is 59 years and 75% are male for the Wall Street Journal. WSJ has about 3.4 million digital subscriptions. Emma Tucker, editor in chief of the Wall Street Journal says, she doesn't want the Wall Street Journal to become the German car industry of news publishing. She is pushing for changes to bring younger and more diverse readers to the WSJ. Emma Tucker was deputy editor of The Times of London and Editor of The Sunday Times in 2020. Her new role requires managing 1200 journalists compared to 120 in earlier work. Audience data is part of her way of responding to new changes.

LyrArc Article Gist
About 14 million people are in poverty or slipping below the poverty line according to Paritatische Wohlfahrtsverband, umbrella organization for welfare organizations. German per capita wealth is about 52,000 euros but there is growing inequality in wealth and incomes.  A household with 2 parents and 2 children is at the poverty line at 2410 euros a month or about 29000 euros a year. Social safety net under Hartz IV does little to help because it is set at 449 euros a month with 285 to 376 euros for each child. This is expected to go up to 503 euros a month per person in 2023. Even though experts say at least 650 euros are needed per month to live  with dignity. Under this system only 5 euros per day is set by Hartz IV for food, says DW.com, which is shocking. It means food of lesser quality or less food goes to the less well off. About 2 million people use food banks. Prices are up 12% in 2022 for basics such as bread, vegetables, milk and cheese. One study shows old age poverty is likely to affect 20% of Germans by 2036. The situation is bad for elderly, students and women. Women have worked part time reducing their income.  A student with federal funding gets 934 euros a month which is well below the poverty line. A new program for 200 billion euros is planned by German government to protect against inflation for households. Minimum wage is 12 euros per hour so that someone who works 40 hours a week makes 1480 per month in net income. After inflation this is close to the poverty line. Such is the situation for Germans today even after decades of growth and being seen as an export powerhouse. Compare this to the situation in India where the food program of the Modi administration continues to support food supplies that are adequate for feeding a family right through the pandemic for 800 million people and one sees that the idea of what is a rich or poor country is turned on its head. It is simply the will of the culture of a people and a country and its leadership that makes its limited or larger national wealth available to all its citizens, for the basics to fulfill the idea that "all men are created equal and they are endowed by their Creator with some inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," enshrined in the minds of Asia borrowed from America. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
For the first time the U.S. focuses on the huge trade deficit with China in a serious way. The trade negotiating team led by Robert Lighthizer has set forth its negotiating terms.  1. China must reduce its trade deficit with the U.S. by $100 billion in the first 12 months. In the next 12 months it must reduce its deficit by another $100 billion. In 2 years the trade deficit the U.S. has with China must come down by $200 billion. The issue is no longer just the tariffs on steel, it is about the core issue of balance in  trade. 2. The U.S. says subsidies to state industries in the "Made in China 2025" program must stop. Here the focus is on gaining an unfair technological advantage with a combination of U.S. technology imports and subsidies to state advanced manufacturing industries to erode over time the U.S. technological lead.  3.  China is expected to cut its tariffs by about two thirds on imported products so that the tariffs match that of the U.S. This is the first serious negotiation the U.S. has conducted with China on the core issue of the trade surplus which is growing with a stronger dollar not declining. The surplus approaches $1 billion each day for about $365 billion a year, unsustainable from any perspective. The vital issue of the erosion of the U.S. technological advantage under the Made in China 2025 has turned this issue into one in which the U.S. is unlikely to back down. Especially now that Mr. Lighthizer is leading the  negotiations and has the confidence of the president of the U.S. Lighthizer is a veteran of negotiations from an earlier period -under the Reagan administration in a similar situation with another national competitor- then it was the Japanese. A relentless negotiator as the U.S. seeks to reverse a trade imbalance of stupendous proportions neglected by previous administrations.           ...

LyrArc Article Gist
A critical part of the Affordable Care Act is the setup of marketplaces or exchanges to let people without insurance buy individual health plans. Some states setup their own exchanges, and some states let the federal government step in and run them. To help the lower middle class and poor the Act provides health subsidies to buy insurance in the exchanges, and 85% of customers in the exchanges qualify for this benefit. The U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 in 2015, compared to a tight vote in 2012 on the Affordable Care Act, to maintain the health subsidies. Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion, saying "Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not destroy them." Justice Scalia dissented calling it "interpretive jiggery-pokery." Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito Jr. dissented. Voting in favor were Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Justice Kennedy dissented in the 2000 case. The challengers petition to the courts was based on a reading of phrases in the Affordable Act which had not occurred to the writers of the law. The reading suggests only people enrolled in state setup exchanges are eligible for subsidies. If the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs the 6.4 million Americans who are enrolled in the federal exchanges would lose the subsidies provided under the law and lose health insurance. And the economic foundations of the Affordable Act would be undermined with insurance companies required to provide insurance to all regardless of pre-existing conditions and subsidies removed, leaving the companies with sicker pool of customers resulting in destabilizing the exchanges and higher premiums. The court ruled in favor of an interpretation that is compatible with the whole law and the intentions of the statute to help the middle class and the poor buy health insurance. The chaos in the insurance markets that would result in going with the plaintiffs because of a careless writing of a phrase, was uppermost in the majority's mind. Chief Justice Roberts emphasized this, saying- "The statutory scheme compels us to reject petitioners' interpretation, because it would destabilize the individual insurance market in any state with a federal exchange and likely create the very 'death spirals' that Congress designed the act to avoid." This case originated with 4 plaintiffs from Virginia who challenged the IRS regulation that said subsidies were allowed regardless of whether the exchanges were run by the state or the federal government, arguing that this was at odds with the particular phrase in the law that was ambiguous about federal exchanges eligibility for health subsidies. Judge Roger Gregory of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virgina, ruled that the phrase was indeed ambiguous, but the IRS was owed deference in its opinion. Chief Justice Roberts made it clear that this was not a case for the IRS, saying "it is instead our task to determine the correct reading." ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Starmer and Yvette Cooper plan action on speeding up 32,000 asylum cases which cost $5.4 billion in 6 months of 2025 for migrants and asylum hotels. Yet speeding up and creating alternative ways to cut asylum cases may not be enough to address the problem which at its root goes to the fact that the British system of justice was not designed to handle people of other countries freely entering the country on boats. Already the Times of London repoirts that there are 111,000 asylum cases up from 7000 in 2022 by June 2025.  A clear warning that Labour's entire program of action on housing, on immigration, on the economy and cost of living, can be derailed by not recognizing the fact that illegal migrants are simply making a travesty of the British system of justice which was not designed for people of other countries freely entering the country. The simple question is can thousands of illegal migrants be placed ahead of the interests of 60 million people of England, Wales and Scotland.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Portugal leads the world in developing soccer players, no country has hundreds of soccer professional players all over the world. A country of just 10.3 million, the defending European champion, it has 292 professional players in 45 countries. Even Italy, another soccer crazy nation has only 105 pros abroad. Much of the development of soccer players from a very young age happens at sporting clubs Benefica, Porto, and Sporting. They act as scouts, finishing schools after rigorous practice, and places that transfer players to other clubs, all put together in one place with large soccer academies. The uniformity of coaching, and the primacy of soccer as a sport helps Portugal dominate soccer in a way that is not reflected in its size. Soccer fields in all directions is what you see at Benefica's training facilities in Portugal. 10 soccer pitches are not enough for the director of Benefica's youth academy. 10 different teams of exciting preteens to Portuguese pros need to practice every day.  Christiano Ronaldo was found at Sporting, Ricardo Carvalho at Porto. One boarding school at Benefica has 89 students who do their academic studies at the club and play soccer, attend classes in the morning and play in the afternoon. There are 3 different teams under 14. A pathway puts some of them into the senior squads or for them to become attractive enough to draw a large transfer fee outside Portugal. Five different talent centers and 200 people search for talent by watching under 10's or 12's play soccer games. Once they are chosen they move to Seixal, outside of Lisbon for training. The clubs essentially create value through selection and training for years in soccer academies within the clubs. The clubs support their activities by having a lower cost way to access talent at home, and by generating the hefty transfer fees. Since 2014-2015 season the surplus for Benefica is about 540 million euros. Costs are in the eight figures making it possible to generate a profit by having a sale of a few good players to lower profile teams such as Israel, even if they are not at the level of the top players in the Champions League.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Much of India's relations with Britain as a colonial power, and the US as the first real democracy (defined in a new way without colonial interests) after Britain in the modern world, were set in the period when Gandhi mentored by Gokhale and Tilak in 1900 set the independence struggle of the 1930's and 1940's. Modi merely restored the Gandhian spirit with a development focus and honest administration. This enormous contribution of Gandhi revered by all leaders including Modi is a benevolent one recognizing the important and one might say virtuous role played by the US under Wilson and Roosevelt to colonized nations such as China and India as can be seen in the personal letter to FDR written in the 1940's by Gandhi. There are two defining relations of the US, the first related to its founding as a British colony and a war of independence fought with the help of the French. And the other related to Asia, to Japan, China, and India as they modernized in 1900-2000. Of this the relationship with the most ancient of ancient civilizations in India is the dominant US relationship in 2025, because it unlocks the mysteries of westernization without the religious ethos of Buddhism in an imperialist Japan and now expanding Communist China. This religious ethos of China, Japan and Vietnam lies in Indian soil and in the ethos of the Indian people, and where Gandhi drew his inspiration. From this ethos comes the idea that India as a true friend of America and a Europe (that includes Russia) cannot ignore the devastation of Ukraine and inadvertently find itself a participant through its purchase of Russian oil at $119 billion a year (even when China under a expanding Communist government purchases Russian oil at $136 billion a year). The cost of the war is about $213 billion in a Russian wartime economy which also hurts the Russian economy and the cost of living through inflation for the Russian people. India will seek to do some soul searching and find the right path Gandhi would hold on to for Britain, America, and rest of Europe including the Russian people. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Republicans wanted to see money spent in the states on the idea that states best knew where needs were. Democrat Clinton called it "ending welfare as we know it," and signed the bill for TANF where $16 billion was sent to states in anti poverty programs and $15 billion added to this by the states. This is how TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) started under Clinton in 1996. It was put under Department of Health and Human Services. A lot of latitude was given to states on how to spend the money. In 2026 much of this money is not spent wisely. GAO government agency audits show 37 states had 56 severe deficiencies with "opaque accounting practices." This includes Florida, Louisiana, and Connecticut. The Government Accountability Foundation calls the lack of accountability "fraud by design," saying that one fifth of the $31 billion never reaches the people it was intended to benefit. Both Republican and Democratic states are not using the funds the way they were meant to be used. Needy families getting help have come down from 1.9 million in 2010 to 850,000 in 2025.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This is an indepth article on Donald Trump's financial holdings, looking at the debt that Trump has built up in his real estate dealings, by Susanne Craig of the NYT. To get a detailed look of this the NYT inquiry into the holdings engaged RedVision Systems, a national property information firm to search publicly available data. Much of Trump's business is shrouded in mystery. But it is well known that Trump has used debt to build his business in a way that is not considered good practice in business, having led to three bankruptcies. Trump says he "is the king of debt." And "he loves debt." The recovery of real estate values during a rescue effort for the country's financial system also helped Trump tackle debt in a way that was not available to other entrepreneurs who suffered from the oil price collapse- one of them McClendon also used debt aggressively and his business collapsed leading to suicidal car crash. You can love excessive debt only if the government supports you with some sort of financial guarnatee misplaced, or you are lucky to get away with it- just ask McClendon. The irony is that the rescue of the financial system led to the low interest rates that hurt savings of the middle and working class, and the lack of help to Main Street in the home foreclosure crisis also hurt the same people disproportionately. The Obama administration policies in this regard rescued the very same business interests such as the New York real commercial estate symbolized by Trump, that are now appealing to those hurt as president Obama worked to let the financial system recover. The intention was never to support excessively overleveraged banks or overleveraged real estate built on debt, but in reality this is what happened. A nation cannot run its financial affairs in this manner of overleveraging to extract high profits that an investment bank such as Lehman or Goldman Sachs does, or a real estate company such as Trump's does- if regulators let them do this. Normally after the financial crisis of such dimensions that it shook the world economy in 2008-2009 leading to fears of a collapse as happened in the 1930's, the same faces would not still be there. But this is a strange period or a transition period where things are being sorted out, and the same faces Blankfein at Goldman Sachs and Trump in New York commercial real estate are with us.  And though the bashing of Goldman Sachs connection to Clinton is evident in the campaigns of Trump and Sanders, the bashing of Trump real estate and finance companies with its overleveraging and bankruptcies is evident in the campaign of Clinton against one posing as a representative of the working class. John Paulson who benefitted by shorting mortgage securities that caused the financial crisis of 2008 is on Trump's top economic advisory team, including the hedge funds and financial interests on Wall Street that Trump is saying support Clinton. No one, not the NYT or WSJ, can answer this, its just the paradox of today's situation. Hillary Clinton can say she has learned her lesson, with her Methodist upbringing and her own supporters such as Robert Reich and others, and break with the past especially as it in no way contributes to her success as president, not one bit. In fact rebuilding the middle class and infrastructure require entirely different connections and views on life, a different imagination.  Trump has billions of dollars and a real estate business that is so complex that even the NYT and property information firms can only say that in the end it is shrouded in mystery. Companies owned by Trump says the NYT from this inquiry have debt of $650 million. Other Trump business activities through 3 passive partnerships owe an additional $2 billion. It is a lot easier for Hillary Clinton to put the speech fees behind her as they have little to do with what she is as a Methodist and a proponent of improving women's lives, than it is for Donald Trump- for whom his business is everything that he is including his art of the deal- to reject who he is. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
A recent poll shows Mr. Trump increasing his support from a bloc of voters that disapprove of his job performance but still give credit to Mr. Trump for an improving economy. A new WSJ/NBC poll shows 51% of Americans disapprove of his overall job performance, with 46% approving. The same percentage that say they disapprove of job performance are also saying they give him credit for a stronger economy up from the 44% in April 2017 who said they approved his way of handling the economy. Wages have increased 3.2%  in each of the last 2 months and unemployment is at an historic low over 50 years. One group that has a 10 point gap when it comes to the economic performance is among Independents, where 38% approve of Mr. Trump but 48% approve his economic performance. A big jump is among Hispanics who have benefited greatly with new jobs in construction and other areas of the economy. Trump's 46% approval rating in May 2019 is among the highest he has achieved, rising 3 points since the last identical poll in March 2019. About 29% still think the Mueller Report clears Mr. Trump of wrongdoing as they did in March. Still things can change as 42% believe the Mueller Report does not clear Mr. Trump of wrongdoing, and another 29% haven't made up their mind. On impeachment hearings about 48% think Congress should let Mr. Trump finish out his term, 49% think there is either enough evidence or Congress should continue investigating with an eye to future impeachment hearings. The survey margin of error is about 4 percentage points, covers 900 adults.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Summer tourism is helping support a second wave of the pandemic. This report says Croatia is a case study on how the opening of tourism can trigger a second wave. Because Croatia depends on tourism and Croatia had controlled coronavirus cases in May, the government decided to open its coastline areas to tourists from Europe. These tourists returned home with the infection and spread the virus. Clubs and bars were allowed to reopen for the summer season after the lockdown in April along the Adriatic coast attracting visitors. With 500 miles of coastline and Mediterranean climate, ancient towns and affordable stay, Croatia is crowded with tourists. In 2019 21 million visitors came here according to the Croatia Tourist Board. On Italian visitor from Parma cited here says she found crowded parties and bustling bars and restaurants where hardly anybody kept social distancing and wore masks. People in shops and bars she says told people they did not need to wear masks. The governments in Europe were keen on making up for the economic costs of the pandemic and opened the internal borders of the European Union in June. The opening of resorts in the sunbelt of Europe in Spain and Portugal has led to the spike in cases in Madrid and other cities in Spain. The same is happening in France. But vigilance dropped especially in Croatia where little or no restrictions were visible. Not only were bars allowed to open but the social distancing rules and mask rules were never practiced. Some Croatians call it incomprehensible. It has led to the spike in Germany, Czech Republic and Austria. The Koch Institute says 12% of all new German cases are traceable to Croatia. It is now a fact that international travel is a way the coronavirus accelerates. Governments in France, Germany, and the UK which are not especially dependent on tourism have the option to encourage people to stay in their home countries and remove this cause of acceleration while keeping shops and offices open so that business and jobs are preserved. For people hurt by lack of employment in the hospitality industry and others with lost wages from being in an occupation that acts to accelerate the virus it is a better option to offer financial assistance than to end up closing offices and shops in another partial lockdown. Opening bars helped accelerate the pandemic in California after the lockdown with steeply rising numbers of new cases. Educating the public to the extent that it should be about the dangers is also missing.    ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The $3.5 trillion bill of president Biden to help America get back on its feet after the pandemic and after years of neglect of infrastructure, manufacturing technologies, child care, health and education, is that much only if offsetting tax increases and spending cuts are not included. When this is taken into account the US is spending about $871 billion to rebuild its economy and for a better life for Americans. That is the estimate provided in the report September 13 by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation.

Experts say that if president Trump's bill- Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 was calculated without offsetting cuts and tax increases the same bill would be $5.5 trillion package.

LyrArc Article Gist
A study by Prof. Peter Petri of Brandeis University, shows the Trans Pacific Trade Agreement boosting economic output in the U.S. by about 0.4% by 2025 or $77 billion. Winners are biologic drugs which get long term patent protection, tech firms and software engineering services. Losers are the Detroit auto industry with higher auto parts imports, light manufacturing, and some heavy manufacturing sectors. Prof. Douglas Irwin of Dartmouth College and other experts say it is not clear how U.S. consumers and businesses will benefit. The import duties as a percentage of total imports are now at about 1.4%. Experts say about 4/5ths of the benefits of TPP for the U.S. are from opening up trade in services and new rules for investment and commerce. TPP includes Pacific countries Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Mexico, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, and Japan. Issues are environmental rules, worker protection and standards, agricultural imports in sensitive countries such as Canada and Japan, affordable drugs in poor countries....

LyrArc Article Gist
According to a study by Goldman Sachs, an supported by other experts, the USA is only half way through the housing crisis. Goldman estimates that there will be a 18-20% correction overall with about 11-13% further price declines expected. In some states a decline of 25% is expected. These are states that saw huge runup in prices- Virginia and Maryland, Florida, California and Arizona, and New Jersey.

LyrArc Article Gist
Didi Kirsten Tatlow describes the experience of Angel Feng, a 26 year old Chinese graduate from a business school in France, fluent in English, French, Japanese and Chinese. She intervews with Chinese companies in 2010, who always ask a last question about whether she is planning to have a baby and refuse to believe her when she says she does not plan this for five years. Her first job is with a company promoting Chinese brands, which turns out to be bad as the company fires people immediately to slash costs, maintains long working hours and does not respect basic rights. One woman has a miscarraige and is ordered back to work in three days. The socialist era structures have been removed in China and this includes some of the protections for women, and the old ideas are returning in force. Angel decides to work for a semi-state organization run by the Ministry of Education. Women's rights are better protected in state sector companies. The pay of $625 a month is abit lower but it has benefits, including lunch at the canteen, housing allowance, and hours are 8.30 to 5 pm for 5 days a week. Her employer, China Education Association for International Exchange, covers childbirth with employees given at least 90 days maternity leave with full pay....

LyrArc Article Gist
The port of Long Beach which takes in 20% of the container shipping of the USA,, and is next only to Los Angeles port in container shipping, is becoming a story of two economies, the American and the Chinese. Thousands of cars from Toyota, Nissan and Mercedes are piling on port property turning it into one huge parking lot, as dealers across the country say they have no need for them, and piles of paper and metal baled together to be shipped back on these ships to China to be recycled into cardboard for export boxes are also piling up as China no longer needs them. The drivers who drive the trucks are also being laid offf and looking for new jobs, which are signs that a deeper economic downturn is underway and the the Detroit automakers GM and Ford CEO's who told the Banking committee that they are making their estimates for 2009 on the basis of a 13- 14 million vehicle sales year may be in for another rude shock. The figure for the last quarter may be running at 10 million, and if this continues into 2009 as its expected to do, even the producton of cars after accelerated plant closures may have nowhere to go in 2009. Which is why there are so many questions about what is going on in the auto industry and so much need for candour and frank discussion that was missing in the evasiveness apparent in the Senate hearings on November 18, 2008, as CEO and union president skirted around the issues and senators failed to ask many other questions like these on what is happening on demand as well as many others....

LyrArc Article Gist
The US needs good manufacturing jobs for the jobs and income that it brings into communities, and also because of the tax revenues from the companies making products in America that provide the basis for local governments to provide good public services in healthcare, education, and transportation. To say comparitive advantage that helped first Japanese and now Chinese manufacturers is real and how society gains is to deny some basic facts that are self evident from observation that contradict textbook ideas in economics. Comparitive Advantage is a textbook economics concept that says countries are proficient in what they make best and should specialize in that product. But it is a static concept that exists only in textbooks. If Japan in 1960, China in 1980 and India in 2000 were each presented with this idea they would have turned down the idea of making steel and remained makers of lower end products such as footwear and textiles. If Japan in 1980, China in 2000, and India in 2020 were each presented with this idea they would have turned down the idea of making semiconductors and remained makers of lower end products such as steel. A senior vice president of US Steel in the late 1960's even told this writer a graduate student at Northwestern in Chicago- as the US can make steel better than India or China let us keep making it for you. He and much of the business faculty at Northwestern also could not understand in 1970 why Airbus was being setup to compete with Boeing who by the concept of comparitive advantage should have had the whole market to itself for commercial aircraft . By this kind of thinking Airbus would not exist today because it did not have the lowest cost or the manufacturing technologies Boeing had through its vast manufacturing operation. America would be still the only one making aircraft in 2023 if textbook concepts ruled the day. By indirect methods such as hidden preferential arrangements, provision of inputs such as land, capital and labor, tax relief, the costs can be represented in a way that shows it is cheaper to manufacture overseas. The lack of a level playing field is what president Biden is correcting by doing what first Japan, then South Korea, then China and now India are doing since the 1960's. By 1974 in four years after its founding in 1970 Airbus came up with its first model the A-300 using advanced technologies. America will regain its leadership in the cost and manufacturing of many products through Biden policy and the efforts of American companies by 2030, and do this in a transformative way that will benefit the world as a whole.  It is an enormous error to say the US does not need good manufacturing jobs, that local governments do not need the tax revenues from manufacturing plants to build services for communities where manufacturing workers live, and the US does not need the manufacturing experience curve that leads to reduced costs. It is this loss of the manufacturing experience curve that is the most vital aspect for understanding the need for the US government to compete effectively with the governments of Asian countries to keep manufacturing healthy and strong at home. Economics experts ignorant of how important this science and engineering principle is fail to grasp this. Related to this is the idea of a virtuous cycle in manufacturing- whoever braves the hard years of moving up the learning and experience curve gets rewarded because once that country has mastered that skill it gets better an better as the technology advances- making it harder and harder to prevent a new monopoly in manufacturing by the country (Japan, China or Taiwan) that had the highest costs and the least advantage ten or 20 years earlier but just persevered through it all with the government's help to gain cost competitiveness. This part does not make it into the economics textbooks which are mostly theory and much of it outdated by the time they are written. Observation is the best teacher and guide as it is in science, to guide policy and action. Obsessive attachment to theory that ignores observation becomes the enemy of progress. Comparitive advantage is one concept that needs to be retired even from the textbooks. Overseas manufacturing then is a piece of the overall picture that fits into what is good for the US. Macroeconomic principles determine microeconomic outcomes as opposed to microeconomic principles with companies out on their own being forced to compete without a level playing field, or handing out technology for special status in a recipient country as some do putting the US at a macroeconomic disadvantage. This is also healthy for the recipient country overseas, as recrimination with loss of manufacturing jobs in the US inevitably leads to the kind of recrimination that does not serve either country well as in the case of China today, and worse still can lead to conflict, even war. After the egregious situation of loss of manufacturing communities across the US leading to destabilizing the social fabric, it is hard to see such thinking prevail about the US not needing manufacturing as a vital part of its social fabric and industrial strength. China, it can be said, would have developed, and developed well over the past two decades without overconcentration of US and EU manufacturing in China. Without aggravating the problems of climate change and contamination of air, land and water, and destabilizing the social fabric in the US hurting workers and communities across the US, if macroeconomic policy was made to manage this process in the US government without it being left entirely to individual companies to decide. Instead China faces today a difficult situation through events such as destabilizing the social fabric in the US (the Trump tariffs), advanced economies in G-7 resistance to sharing of technologies, the damage to its environment from microeconomic locally determined policy at individual companies, and the global effects of climate change from climate unsustainable levels of growth since 2000.  ...